CIA Program Targeted Senior Al Qaeda Leadership

The secret CIA program that was withheld from Congress was designed to find and capture or kill senior al-Qaeda leadership at close range rather than through air strikes, government officials said.

The now canceled counterterrorism intelligence program has stirred controversy among legislators demanding to know what it entailed and why it was kept secret from Congress for eight years after going into the planning stages shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

One Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said CIA Director Leon Panetta told them that former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the program be kept secret and that CIA directors agreed, placing Cheney squarely at the center of the controversy.

“He was told the vice president had ordered that the program not be briefed to the Congress,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “I think that is a problem, obviously.”

But in an interview with NPR, former CIA Director Michael Hayden disputed that claim, saying he was never told not to brief Congress about the CIA’s secret counterterrorism program.

“I never felt I had any impediment in briefing Congress,” Hayden said.

Panetta canceled the program in June. In a hastily arranged classified briefing to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees last month, the CIA director said he himself found out about the program in June and believed Congress should have been informed of it long ago.

via CIA Program Targeted Senior Al Qaeda Leadership – ABC News.

Saudi ‘genie’ sued for harassment

A family in Saudi Arabia is taking a “genie” to court, accusing it of theft and harassment, reports say.

They accuse the spirit of threatening them, throwing stones and stealing mobile phones, Al Watan newspaper said.

The family have lived in the same house near the city of Medina for 15 years but say they only recently became aware of the spirit. They have now moved out.

A local court is investigating. In Islamic theology, genies are spirits that can harass or possess humans.

‘Get out of the house’

“We began to hear strange sounds,” the head of the family, who come from Mahd Al Dahab, told the Saudi daily. He did not want to be named.

“At first we did not take it seriously, but then stranger things started to happen and the children got particularly scared when the genie started throwing stones.”

He added: “A woman spoke to me first, and then a man. They said we should get out of the house.”

A local court says it is trying to verify the truthfulness of the claims “despite the difficulty” of doing so.

Many Westerners know the term genie from the tale of Aladdin and the magic lamp, or the 1960s American sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie.

But the BBC’s Sebastian Usher says genies, or jinn, in Islamic theology can be a lot more sinister.

They are believed to be normally invisible but with the ability to assume human or animal form, and are often said to be motivated by revenge or jealousy.

There is a lingering belief in genies in the Muslim world that predates Islam, our correspondent says.

via BBC NEWS | Middle East | Saudi ‘genie’ sued for harassment.

Police Sergeant reports three very tall blond haired beings

Colin Andrews has an update on his High Strangeness Alert page. Are we on the edge of first contact? Or is this another hoax?

I have received several other reports, and I encourage others who have information to also please contact me.

One report is extraordinary and allegedly received the immediate attention, of a government organization to the home of the witness.  I asked for written details about this exceptional (and some what scary) case and received those details last night. I will not be making any further public statement about the details until they can be fully verified, only to say this:

I trust my source in Washington DC implicitly and he trusts the originating source but to get to the bottom of it, I am going to have to do some leg work, best done quietly. The witness claims to have had a very close encounter with a 8-9 feet tall being, north of Silbury Hill, in Wiltshire, England . He was visited by three government officers (details with me) who produced a book of sketches of different ET beings and ask the witness which one he had seen. At least two agencies were allegedly involved which should help verify this case. Full details later.

A second report was sent to me also yesterday by a woman driving the A4 (the highway that runs east-west next to Silbury Hill), and was driving on the east side of Marlborough, Wiltshire when she estimates a 7-8 feet tall being came out of a gateway from a field and jumped back as the car passed – His head appeared triangular shape. The latter incident took place three years ago. I have details of the exact location etc, which will be posted as part of a much more extensive report
including other similar reports later.

I will pursue the first incident that involved several government agencies when I arrive in England  next week. On the face of it, the three officers from one of these agencies revealed by their  actions, that the government knows much more about these beings than they have so far declared under the new open policy surrounding the UFO subject. (See my latest book
Government Circles.)

2,000-year-old cream shows aristocrat’s taste

This ancient ointment was found to have a high abundance of fatty acids. It also contained natural resins and moringa oil, which was one of the ingredients in a recipe for a perfume for ancient royalty. The researchers also believe that the lotion was imported.

Italian archaeologists have discovered lotion that is over 2,000 years old, left almost intact in the cosmetic case of an aristocratic Etruscan woman.

The discovery, which occurred four years ago in a necropolis near the Tuscan town of Chiusi, has just been made public, following chemical analysis which identified the original compounds of the ancient ointment. The team reports their findings in the July issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Dating to the second half of the second century B.C., the intact tomb was found sealed by a large terracotta tile. The site featured a red-purple painted inscription with the name of the deceased: Thana Presnti Plecunia Umranalisa.

“From the formula of the name, we learn that Thana Plecunia was the daughter of a lady named Umranei, a member of one of the most important aristocratic families of Chiusi,” the researchers wrote.

Indeed, the wide rectangular niche tomb certainly represents the noble origins of the deceased.

The ashes of Thana rested in a small travertine urn, decorated with luxuriant foliate elements and the head of a female goddess, most likely the Etruscan Earth goddess Cel Ati.

Nearby, the archaeologists found a cosmetic case, richly decorated with bone, ivory, tin and bronze elements. The feet of the box featured bone carved in the shape of Sirens.

talian archaeologists have discovered lotion that is over 2,

via 2,000-year-old cream shows aristocrat’s taste – Discovery.com- msnbc.com.

Examine object

Cosmetic Case (Taken).
You discover a cosmetic case, richly decorated with bone, ivory, tin and bronze elements.
Your score just increased by 5000 points.

Open case.

Opening the case reveals an ancient magical vanishing cream…

Colored bubbles arise after 15-year quest

Shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, bubbles are a joy to children young and old. For inventor Tim Kehoe, however, creating a bubble with a single color that won’t stain when it pops has been a 15-year, $3 million obsession. Two weeks ago, the world’s first colored, non-staining bubbles, Zubbles, went on sale.

A lot of people “said that you just can’t color a bubble,” said Kehoe, “which is discouraging when that is exactly what you are trying to do.”

The use of bubbles for entertainment purposes was first recorded about 400 years ago. Today, bubbles are arguably the world’s most popular toy, with more than 200 million bottles of bubble solution sold annually.

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The simple chemistry of bubbles — two layers of soap sandwiching a layer of water about a millionth of an inch thick — has foiled virtually every attempt to modify them. Bubbles that last a little longer or can be blown a little bigger have since been created, but adding color, what some toy manufactures have called the “holy grail” of toys, has remained frustratingly elusive.

Standard food coloring or dyes have no effect; they simply run down the sides of the bubble, creating a drop of color on the bottom. Other dyes can stain bubbles, but when they pop they also stain clothes, dogs and eyes, as Kehoe discovered during one accident. Other tests, including one for a bubble dye that washed out, didn’t fare much better.

“I thought a washable bubble was a great idea,” said Kehoe. “But the kids (of a large focus group) were covered head to toe in red dye. It looked like a scene from Braveheart.”

Eventually Kehoe and his colleagues found the three different classes of dyes that produce intense, vibrant and uniform colors. Originally, it took three days to produce what would eventually become Zubbles, but now it takes about 30 minutes.

Once a bubble pops, the dye fades in 15 minutes on virtually every material imaginable: concrete, leather, nylon, cotton and paint. Even easily stained material like silk remain unstained 15 minutes after a Zubble touches them.

via Colored bubbles arise after 15-year quest – Discovery.com- msnbc.com.

Swearing Makes Pain More Tolerable

That muttered curse word that reflexively comes out when you stub your toe could actually make it easier to bear the throbbing pain, a new study suggests.

Swearing is a common response to pain, but no previous research has connected the uttering of an expletive to the actual physical experience of pain.

“Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon,” said Richard Stephens of Keele University in England and one of the authors of the new study. “It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain.”

Stephens and his fellow Keele researchers John Atkins and Andrew Kingston sought to test how swearing would affect an individual’s tolerance to pain. Because swearing often has an exaggerating effect that can overstate the severity of pain, the team thought that swearing would lessen a person’s tolerance.

As it turned out, the opposite seems to be true.

The researchers enlisted 64 undergraduate volunteers and had them submerge their hand in a tub of ice water for as long as possible while repeating a swear word of their choice. The experiment was then repeated with the volunteer repeating a more common word that they would use to describe a table.

Contrary to what the researcher expected, the volunteers kept their hands submerged longer while repeating the swear word.

The researchers think that the increase in pain tolerance occurs because swearing triggers the body’s natural “fight-or-flight” response. Stephens and his colleagues suggest that swearing may increase aggression (seen in accelerated heart rates), which downplays weakness to appear stronger or more macho.

via Swearing Makes Pain More Tolerable | LiveScience.

Boca Raton, Monday night around 9 pm, mysterious green light.

To Run Better, Start by Ditching Your Nikes

Before the Nikes, before the breathable, antimicrobial running shorts, before the personal fitness coaches, heart rate monitors, wrist-mounted GPS and subscriptions to Runner’s World, you were a runner.

And, like all children, you ran barefoot.

Now, a small but growing body of research suggests that barefoot is the way adults should run, too. So, many runners have been shucking off the high-tech trainers in favor of naked feet — or minimalist footwear like Nike Free, the Newton All-Weather Trainer and the glove-like Vibram FiveFingers.

“People have been running barefoot for millions of years and it has only been since 1972 that people have been wearing shoes with thick, synthetic heels,” said Daniel Lieberman, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University.

Strong evidence shows that thickly cushioned running shoes have done nothing to prevent injury in the 30-odd years since Nike founder Bill Bowerman invented them, researchers say. Some smaller, earlier studies suggest that running in shoes may increase the risk of ankle sprains, plantar fasciitis and other injuries. Runners who wear cheap running shoes have fewer injuries than those wearing expensive trainers. Meanwhile, injuries plague 20 to 80 percent of regular runners every year.

But the jury’s still out on whether going barefoot is actually an improvement.

“The running shoe right now is doing nothing for preventing injuries,” said Reed Ferber, director of the Running Injury Clinic at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Kinesiology. But, he adds, going barefoot has downsides too, and the research so far is still inconclusive. “It’s a total tradeoff.”

via To Run Better, Start by Ditching Your Nikes | Wired Science | Wired.com.

Barefoot? I think not… too much sharp junk out there on the trails… but I’d like top try some of those Five Fingers.

Last Man on the Moon

Everyone knows the name of the first man on the moon, but what about the last? Eugene Cernan left the final bootprint that may ever appear on the surface of our dusty satellite. Yet Cernan has been heralded for far more than this milestone. He is not only one of the most accomplished of the astronauts—he journeyed into space three times, on Gemini 9, Apollo 10, and Apollo 17—but one of the most eloquent in describing his otherworldly experiences. Below, join him as he lifts off, walks in space, lands and walks on the moon, and reenters Earth’s atmosphere. From the book The Last Man on the Moon. Copyright 1999 by Eugene Cernan and Don Davis. Reprinted with permission of St. Martin’s Press, LLC, New York, NY …

Landing on the Moon (Apollo 17)
I scanned for an empty space in a parking lot of boulders as big as automobiles, and was concerned the powerful LM [Lunar Module] engine might kick up a cloud of black dust that would blot my view. Instead, there was very little, and I was able to eyeball the landing site. So close to the valley floor, those surrounding massifs seemed damned big! The sheer North Massif to our right stood as tall as eight-and-a-half Eiffel Towers and to the left, the wretched slab of the South Massif would equal the height of about seven Empire State Buildings stacked one atop the other.

A determined Jack [Schmitt, the LM pilot and a geologist, the only scientist to go to the moon] stayed with his readouts. “Move her forward a little. Ninety feet. Little forward velocity. Eighty feet, going down at three [feet per second]. Getting a little dust. We’re at 60 feet, going down at about two. Very little dust. Very little dust, 40 feet, going down at three.”

Almost there. I steadied the lander for the final hop as charcoal-gray dust rose up and roiled about the windows, obscuring the view. “Stand by for touchdown.” “Standing by. Twenty-five feet, down at two,” Jack said with tense words. “Fuel’s good. Twenty feet. Going down at two. Ten feet . . . .”

Wire sensors nine feet long trailed from the pads of the lander legs, and when one brushed the surface, a blue light flashed on my console and I shut down the rocket. We dropped the last few feet with a stomach-flipping thud, jolted once, and came to rest slightly tilted in a shallow depression. We were only 200 feet from the precise place picked as a target months ago on Earth.

It was 1:54 P.M. Houston time on December 11, 1972, and four days, 14 hours, 22 minutes, and 11 seconds had elapsed since we had blasted off from Florida. I paused for a moment and slowly exhaled after making one of the smoothest landings of my career.

More than two and a half hours of unrelenting dynamic action and steely tension had drained my senses since we had undocked from America [the command module], and now everything came to an abrupt stop. Instant silence reigned. Not a word from Jack, who was as stunned as I, no pounding rocket, no vibration, no noise. Not the song of a bird, the bark of a dog, not a whisper of wind or any familiar sound from my entire life. I was totally enveloped by such a thorough and complete stillness that I have difficulty comprehending it even today. The only sound inside my helmet was my labored breath, and even that slight disturbance seemed so terribly intrusive that for a brief moment, I stopped breathing, too. Then there was nothing at all.

I broke the spell. “Okay, Houston, the Challenger has landed!” I joyfully reported and pried my cramped hands from the thruster controls. “Yes sir, we is here. Tell America that Challenger is at Taurus-Littrow [the designated landing site].”

Above the South Massif, the Earth stood still in the inky southwestern sky, my silent, guardian star.

Stepping Onto the Surface (Apollo 17)
Dreams really do come true. Four hours after landing on the moon and wearing the backpack that contained my life-support system, I wriggled backward through the tiny hatch, got to my knees on the small porch, and cautiously descended Challenger’s ladder, a rung at a time, until I stood on the saucerlike footpad. The sun glared bright all around as I had my first good look at the vast emptiness, while the canopy of sky remained thickly black from horizon to horizon, a contradiction that played How can this be? with my logical mind.

No fear, no apprehension, but a tremendous sense of satisfaction and accomplishment welled within me. My size-10-1/2 boot was poised just inches above the surface of this almost mythical land that mankind had watched so closely for uncounted eons and to which we had assigned properties ranging from religious icon and symbol of romance to maker of werewolves and clock for the harvest. Every night of my life it had been up there, patiently waiting for my visit.

I lowered my left foot and the thin crust gave way. Soft contact. There, it was done. A Cernan bootprint was on the moon.

I had fulfilled my dream. No one could ever take this moment away. “As I step off at the surface of Taurus-Littrow, I’d like to dedicate the first steps of Apollo 17 to all those who made it possible,” I called to Houston. “Oh, my golly. Unbelievable.”

My God, I was standing in a place no one had ever been before. The soil that was firmly supporting me was not the dirt of the Earth, but of a different celestial body, and it glittered in the bright sun as if studded with millions of tiny diamonds. The sun, low in the lunar morning sky, cast a long shadow beyond the parked Challenger.

I slowly pivoted, trying to see everything, and was overwhelmed by the silent, majestic solitude. Not so much as a squirrel track to indicate any sort of life, not a green blade of grass to color the bland, stark beauty, not a cloud overhead, or the slightest hint of a brook or stream. But I felt comfortable, as if I belonged here. From where I stood on the floor of this beautiful mountain-ringed valley that seemed frozen in time, the looming massifs on either side were not menacing at all. It was as if they, too, had been awaiting the day someone would come and take a walk in their valley. I wasn’t worried about what might happen next, whether some unknown danger lurked at my elbow, nor did I give much thought about how we would get out of this place when the time came. We had gotten here, and we would get home. For the next three days, I planned to live my life to the fullest, to milk every moment of this rare and wonderful existence.

The Last Man on the Moon (Apollo 17)
Back at Challenger, we dusted each other off, loaded our final boxes of rocks, then Jack climbed the ladder and disappeared into the hatch. By then, we had stayed longer and traveled further on the surface of the moon than any other crew. We had covered about 19 miles and collected more than 220 pounds of rock samples and, even before we were aboard, scientists in Houston were crowing that this had been the most meaningful lunar exploration ever. We were living proof that the Apollo program had paid dividends.

While Jack cleaned up inside, I drove the Rover about a mile away from the LM and parked it carefully so the television camera could photograph our takeoff the next day. As I dismounted, I took a moment to kneel and with a single finger, scratched [my daughter] Tracy’s initials, T D C, in the lunar dust, knowing those three letters would remain there undisturbed for more years than anyone could imagine.

Alone on the surface, I hopped and skipped my way back to Challenger, my thoughts racing wildly as I sought to encompass this experience. Just being there was a triumph of science to be celebrated for ages, but it was more than a personal dream come true, for I felt that I represented all humanity.

There was a sense of eternity about Apollo. Sir Isaac Newton once said, “If I have been able to see farther than others, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants.” Every man and woman who put in long hours to get us to the moon now stood with me beside the lunar lander in that odd sun-washed darkness. Every astronaut who had gone into space, who made it possible for me to fly a little higher, stay a little longer, was at my side. These were the giants upon whose shoulders I stood as I reached for the stars. I could almost feel the presence of [Roger Chaffee, Gus Grissom, and Ed White, the astronauts of Apollo 1 who died in a launchpad fire], and all other astronauts and cosmonauts who died in the pursuit of the moon. We had carried on in their names.

I took one last unfiltered look at the Earth and was enveloped by a sense of selfishness, for I was unable to adequately share what I felt. I wanted everyone on my home planet to experience this magnificent feeling of actually being on the moon. That was not technologically possible, and I knew it, but there was a bit of guilt at being the Chosen One. I put a foot on the pad and grabbed the ladder. I knew that I had changed in the past three days, and that I no longer belonged solely to the Earth. Forever more, I would belong to the universe.

via NOVA Online | To the Moon | Last Man on the Moon.

Processed foods linked to Alzheimer’s and diabetes

Researchers at Rhode Island Hospital have found a substantial link between increased levels of nitrates in our food with increased deaths from diseases; including Alzheimer’s, diabetes and Parkinson’s. The controversial study, which contends that we have become the “nitrosamine generation,” appears in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Led by Suzanne de la Monte, of Rhode Island Hospital, the researchers studied the trends in mortality rates due to diseases that are associated with aging, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes and cerebrovascular disease, as well as HIV. They found strong parallels between age adjusted increases in death rate from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and diabetes and the progressive increases in human exposure to nitrates, nitrites and nitrosamines through processed and preserved foods as well as fertilizers. Other diseases including HIV-AIDS, cerebrovascular disease and leukemia did not exhibit those trends.

“We have become a ‘nitrosamine generation.’ In essence, we have moved to a diet that is rich in amines and nitrates, which lead to increased nitrosamine production. We receive increased exposure through the abundant use of nitrate-containing fertilizers for agriculture,” said De la Monte. “Not only do we consume them in processed foods, but they get into our food supply by leeching from the soil and contaminating water supplies used for crop irrigation, food processing and drinking.”

Nitrites and nitrates belong to a class of chemical compounds that have been found to be harmful to humans and animals. More than 90 percent of these compounds that have been tested have been determined to be carcinogenic in various organs. They are found in many food products, including fried bacon, cured meats and cheese products as well as beer and water. Exposure also occurs through rubber and latex products, as well as fertilizers, pesticides and cosmetics.

Nitrosamines are formed by a chemical reaction between nitrites or other proteins. Sodium nitrite is deliberately added to meat and fish to prevent toxin production; it is also used to preserve, color and flavor meats. Ground beef, cured meats and bacon in particular contain abundant amounts of amines due to their high protein content. Nitrosamines are also easily generated under strong acid conditions, such as in the stomach, or at high temperatures associated with frying or flame broiling.

Nitrosamines become highly reactive at the cellular level, which then alters gene expression and causes DNA damage. The researchers note that the role of nitrosamines has been well-studied, and their role as a carcinogen has been fully documented. …

“If this hypothesis is correct, potential solutions include eliminating the use of nitrites and nitrates in food processing, preservation and agriculture; taking steps to prevent the formation of nitrosamines and employing safe and effective measures to detoxify food and water before human consumption,” De la Monte concluded.

via Processed foods linked to Alzheimer’s and diabetes.